Home Away From Homeworld
by TheElvenKingOberon94
Summary: After the failure of invading the Earth to check up on the Cluster, Peridot and Lapis get to stay with the Crystal Gems and figure out how Earth works. And while it might take a while for the both of them to trust each other- the Earth has been known to change gems. Alternate version of season 2 and beyond. Peridot x Lapis.
1. Blast Off

Peridot squirmed and seethed. Her mission for Yellow Diamond, the most perfectly formed of the Diamond Authority, was going to be put on hold for the moment in order to regain her bearings. Those infuriating Crystal Gems. Of course she got put on the Earth mission to check up on the Cluster and everything since Homeworld gems loved pulling stuff like this. It was her purpose to check up on Kindergartens and gem experiments but as an Era 2 Peridot, she worried about her skills.

At least her limb enhancers and technology was still here to keep her company. Aiming her ship towards the Earth was a little difficult because of fighting against natural gravitational forces and the solar winds that buffeted this blue and green pile of corruption and annoyance.

"I'm going to ask for the largest possible rest week ever when I get back to Homeworld."

Piloting a escape pod was not entirely in the Peridot knowledge reserves, but if Rubies could be frontline soldiers for Diamond Authority, any gem could figure out the simple ideas of controls. Besides the easiest rule was to never ever press a red button because that would be very bad.

She saw the handship burn up and slough off chunks of its green plating as it entered the atmosphere. That Steven thing would probably say that it was 'pretty' or something but no the ship was hurtling those Crystal Clods to their ends and here she was documenting their ends.

"Nyehehe that's rich."

She let go of the controls for a little bit to watch the flaming ship enter the Earth's atmosphere and relax. If the mission was going to take a while, why not take a breather? It was nice to get away from Jasper's rather annoying self and look at data and have some kind of fun.

Breaking out of her daydream, Peridot glanced over at the ship and drew in a deep breath. The ship had broke off multiple fingers from the heat that was melting the ship and they were hurdling towards her. Taking evasive maneuvers, she hit every possible button as the alarm bells rang warning that a hit was imminent. Bracing for impact and hamming her hand protectors in the control mechanisms, she grazed one of the fingers and noticed that her calm and cool descent had shifted from checking out the Kindergarten to a small town.

She could see the place and vaguely recognized it from what the Steven told her about Steven culture as where he and his clod gems lived. She closed her eyes and tried scrunching up into smaller surface area- while Peridots were naturally really hard to poof and all, falling from orbit in a crash landing was a thing that Peridot wasn't wanting to chance.

The Crystal Gems breathed heavily, the ship had crashed right next to the temple and at some point would be cleaned up. But first they would have to deal with a thing they weren't expecting.

Jasper holding Lapis hostage.

The quartz soldier grinned- thinking of the possibilities of beating the crystal gems and winning for her Diamond finally.

"Fuse with me Lapis. They held you hostage for years in that mirror you told me about. Wouldn't you like getting back at them and winning for once. Wouldn't it feel good to do something that would be good for you?"

Lapis faltered. She remembered the torture that Homeworld had put her through and she shivered. But Jasper was right. She wanted to do something. She'd been trapped in the mirror for so long that lashing out at something made her feel good. She had the power too- taking all the water on this blue ball to attempt an escape showed that. And it had been a while since she had really used her powers ever since that Bismuth had poofed her during the war. She didn't know - maybe she wanted to feel powerful again. It felt like a bad idea. But fusing? Maybe.

Jasper's eyes glinted as the chance for being even bigger and stronger than on her own presented herself a hand and she grabbed onto Lapis forcefully and controlled the dance.

Steven could only watch as Lapis and Jasper formed Malachite. The fusion stalked towards the gems, stretching its limbs and testing out its water powers.

Something would have happened if a hurtling mass of gem technology rammed into the fusion forcefully separating her into the fusion parts. Jasper was lucky enough- or strong enough to not be poofed. But Lapis, who had been interrogated for weeks was not as lucky. Her gem lay on the beach, its blue color calling for the waves that crashed onto the shore.

Jasper could only watch as Peridot stumbled out of the ship and fell straight on her face. Gathering her resolve, Jasper silently vowed even more revenge on Rose Quartz and slunk into the ocean.

"Oh my head. But look at that I'm not hurt at all. Peridot powers are yet again the best thing ever hehehehe-" Peridot looked up from the burned husk of her starship and groaned. "Drat." Then she slumped over, the adrenaline of surviving an orbital crash catching up to Peridot.

"Well that wasn't a future I was expecting." Garnet sighed.

Steven picked up Lapis' gem as Pearl picked up Peridot. While it was unexpected, they could at least get to know the reason why Homeworld sent more troops since it had been thousands of years when they last did that.

The waves broke against the shore, quietly clearing the sand of broken weapons and cooled the fires that had broken out from the crash. Silence reigned as normalcy came back to the town of Beach City- with two new inhabitants.


	2. Little Talks

Peridot's head was a mess. She glanced over herself and gingerly moved each of her legs to make sure everything was okay.

Legs.

Not limb enhancers. Oh Diamond that was not good.

It had been a while since she had to use her legs in actuality and her new vantage point was a good foot lower than it had been before. She barely knew where she was and glancing around the room, she could only hope that there weren't dangerous earth weapons to make her life a metamorphic death sentence.

Carefully balling herself up into the most defensible and safe position in this inhospitable place, she grabbed some nearby comfy height enhancers and a heat trapping device. Her head poked out of this armor to scan for nearby crystal gem enemies.

Peridot heard the door connecting the room open and she burrowed into her protective coverings.

"Hello, Peridot? It's me, Steven. Wait, why are you in my blankets like that anyway."

Peridot poked her head out of these 'blankets' and looked Steven- whose optical magnifying device was partially ringed in black. "No matter, I was worried about what you and your Crystal Gems would do after I was captured in an unfortunate circumstance. And maybe it felt comfortable anyway."

"Um okay." Steven's pocket rang and Peridot drew back in horror as he pulled out a- a most terrible and terrifying weapon. "Sorry, it's my phone and I just really don't want to talk to someone right now." Steven awkwardly stared off into space and Peridot took this new information. Somehow the earth has technology that rivaled the Diamond contacting telescreens of Homeworld and yet was able to be deactivated by choice instead of by the will of the Diamonds. She would have to table the thought of that for later.

"Yes. Well I am still stuck in this den of rebellion forced to do whatever you clods tell me to do."

"See well, the gems really want to talk to you about things but yeah I might have talked them into maybe letting that be put off since we did just save the earth for a moment. But don't worry, I thought 'now if I was Pearl and had to deal with a new gem that didn't want to cooperate and see the world like I do I decided on this thing right~ here!' A leash so we can see how Beach City is and all."

Peridot glanced down at the strange contraption with a strange thing on it and frowned.

"Well my dad had this when I was little and it was rather useful to keep things in check and since you are all small now- still surprised on that fact myself- well having a child leash would be nice and look it has a little hamburger with little pockets!"

"Stupid Earth customs and all. Be fun to see Earth, they said. Now I'm wearing a sick meatsuit and- gahh- can't even see some nice technology and be connected to things."

Peridot hated this. She absolutely hated this with every facet of her gem.

She hated the stupid ground that she had to walk on and being so small and away from her limb enhancers. If they knew that she was powerless in this state thanks to being an Era 2 Gem, those Crystal clods would be laughing it up and trying to make her lose her cool- but she was a Peridot formed from some of the deepest magma vents on Homeworld, the hottest and most melt worthy even getting past that permafusion's strange fire powers. And she, the great and powerful Peridot was made in them and fused with such power and grace that she was too good for the defect and that Pearl without a master to even touch her.

But no, her amazing pedigree of hers was getting paraded around like one of her gem robonoids on a mission.

Well at least this 'Beach City' was trashed from the crash landing. Sad that such technology was being destroyed or just laying out on the sand though. If only she was able to grab some useful tech from the ship, she'd have some form of a weapon to do something with.

Steven was currently expressing sad emotions over this other Steven he knew and was trying and completely failing to block her out. Rather futile to block out transmissions from a thing that wanted to be heard- wailing stones were proof of that kind of transmission. And while these Steven interactions were quite humorous in theory, his attempt to block out others to protect them from gem powers was going to be useless anyway. Especially since the Cluster was going to erupt from the crust of this planet and kill everyone here because going against the better gems that the Diamonds were was a useless and terrible idea. The gem hierarchy had the gems do their defined roles and therefore society was bettered- if these Crystal Gems thought that they could go against their roles and have free will, then Rose Quartz was more of a clod than her mentions in gem history made her out to be.

Infernal ringing yet again. Taking initiative- and realizing that being held captive by a force of defectors was a bad idea for a lovable Peridot- she grabbed the 'phone' of Steven's and ran away her hamburger backpack with leash trailing behind her.

Hitting the green button that the 'phone' displayed, she answered it and was hit by a worried sounding thing on the end that didn't sound like a Steven.

"Steven, why aren't you answering my calls? Cause I'm here worried because you decided to make the last call I ever heard from you sound very distressing and I can't tell my parents that you fought space aliens cause my mom would completely ground me. Steven? Are you there? It is Connie- your jam bud?"

Peridot took this new information of there being also 'Connies' on this planet with the Steven race and maybe that there was some sort of hierarchy of named individuals fulfilling duties and somehow these Connies had to worry about the Stevens.

"Nyeheheyes, hello Connie. I am Peridot Quartz, a very distant gem from Steven and currently he is far away from his phone cause he's being a clod. Also he's holding me hostage in an ugly backpack and that is terrible for my standing on Homeworld. Also yeah, I might have also ben trying to destroy the earth."

And that was how Peridot hung up the phone. She would have begun to gloat, but her legs got tangled up in the leash and she face planted into the sand.

"Are you- are you done?" Steven was trying to catch his breath since Peridot had been running the entire length of the beach to stay away from him.

"Yeah- though I may have told this Connie that you are holding me hostage."

Steven only could yell towards the sky.

Pearl was currently trying to figure out what to do with the new gems. Lapis was the most simple solution- wait to see what her new form would be in a few weeks and decide then. But Peridot? It had been three days since they had gained that Gem and while most of the time she was asleep, the last few times Peridot had been near the Crystal Gems had been violent, even dangerous for Steven and that would be problematic since Peridot seemed to be also the most Homeworld focused of their enemies. Jasper was problematic because of her toxic want for power and natural strength, even matching Garnet in raw strength- but she wasn't too dangerous in theory.

But Peridot did try to hurt Steven and kidnap Steven on a normal basis every time the two were near or at least mess up the whole thing. And Pearl remembered the last time she was near a lot of Peridots- it had been nearly 5000 years but she could still remember the technicians checking her invasively for any gem flaws and judging her accordingly.

Peridots were dangerously smart when they had the technology. And yet here was this small Peridot- strange since Peridots in her time were at least her height if not a bit taller. Was there something wrong on Homeworld or did she just misremember the past?

A knock at the door broke her out of her memories and she quickly opened it to see Steven's friend Connie. Strange. It wasn't one of those days that the Maheswarans had designated as play dates. Or was it? It had been a while since she had looked at the calendar and with being imprisoned for a bit on that gem ship, it could have been long enough to make a few days pass.

"Why hello there Connie, what a pleasant surprise."

"Have you seen Steven? He hasn't been picking up my calls all day and when he did it was some person saying she was a relative of his he's never talked about."

Pearl raised an eyebrow at this. Maybe it was a relative on Greg's side of the family? That man had had some strange relatives appear every once in awhile- even worse when she had to figure out the family tree.

"Oh what was the name? I mean I was rather bored one day and did decide to chart Steven's genealogy back as far as possible. They are probably in there somewhere."

"Is a Peridot Quartz in there and is she a joker or something cause she was saying some weird stuff like being held hostage by you guys."

"Ohwha? Peridot! Oh of all the things I would have thought that Peridot would do I wouldn't have guessed that she'd do that." Peal slammed the door in anger and stormed off fuming to herself of all the things she'd tell Garnet about how Peridot was messing around with Steven's friends now.

"Oh okay, well knowing Steven he's somewhere around here."

"Peridot, you really made Pearl mad with what you did." Steven had watched all that from the beach, quietly trying to hide behind one of the broken fingers of the ship.

"And I don't care cause she's a Pearl and Pearls are supposed to worry about junk and be glorified status symbols. So what if I made a Pearl mad? I am just better than most gems because I'm more important. I have to know how to build every gem ever and control Kindergartens. She just has to look pretty and speak when spoken to."

"Well I'm going to tell Pearl you said all those things and then they might interrogate you about that a bit harsher or whatever."

"Fine. It's not like I have anything else to look forward to on this rock anyway."

Steven's phone rang again and Steven tried to turn it off. His fingers slid across the screen trying to hit the button but his fingers slipped and he dropped the phone into the sand. The phone gave his location away and he quickly tried to hide.

"Hello? Steven? Are you here cause I thought I heard your ringtone-" Connie turned to see Peridot trying to hide as well by hugging tightly to the ship and praying to her Diamond that she wouldn't be found. Peridot grimaced as her perfect plan for Steven to not be a clod about clod stuff fell apart.

"Hello, Connie. I am the lovable Peridot Quartz."

After a good hour and a half of recapping the past few days, Connie finally understood why Steven had been apprehensive about telling her about what happened. It wasn't perfect since it really wasn't that well thought out but it was understandable.

"So you aren't mad at me?"

"Of course not. Steven. Though I thought you'd at least tell me about your life and what's going on because I really like hanging out with you and being part of your world here. I mean I like it here on Earth but being part of your group and hanging out with you is just so exciting and you are like my only friend so I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Yeah I get it. But I don't know what Homeworld would have done with me and that scares me a little."

Peridot laughed. "Well actually that's the funny part. I mean I was the one that had to check up on Yellow Diamond's fusion experiments and maybe take you out and dissect you and figure out how you were created. I mean what are you? A fusion? A weird hybrid between the indigenous race and a gem warrior thereby being a unique thing? I don't know. But yeah most likely we would have had you spend all of your days being tested and probably destroy you since you are one of the last Rose Quartz type gems in existence. At least that's what I could pick up from Yellow Diamond."

The two kids looked at Peridot with horror. Peridot shrugged and laid back on the beach, her hair a bit frazzled from the day's events and looked up at the sky.

"That's horrible." Connie shivered as she thought of how awful Homeworld must be if this new gem was so nonchalant about a thing like that.

"I mean it's not that uncommon anyway. You Crystal Gems exist outside of the authority of Homeworld, it's not that illogical to say that you should be purged anyway and what's the point? You'll fail and the Earth will explode soon. Why fight something that is outright a certainty and impossible to fight."

"Okay Peridot now what are you talking about?" Steven glanced up at the stars that separated the Earth from the realm of outer space and beyond.

"Well I was supposed to check out the Cluster and so far you only have about a year and then boom nothing. There would be a pile of stardust and a giant gem fusion made of billions upon billions of gem shards, each a screaming mass of consciousness, always in pain and wanting to both not fuse and fuse at the same time. And it's right beneath your feet. If you knew what to look for it'd be easy to feel its existence."

"It's right below us? Like where?"

"Ugh, it's the planet's core. Like I said it's useless and it's a parting gift from the Diamonds. Well if you two are done, I'm going to go check on Lapis' gem and call it a night. It's like you two saw a hologram of a long gone gem or something."


	3. Waters of Nazareth

Peridot fumed. Sure she said that Steven was going to be dissected for being an oddity for Homeworld but this was a tad bit far.

"No video games for you."

That had been the permafusion's decree of seeming inflexibility but while Peridot was used to not getting her way- that was what Homeworld taught you- murder your dreams, you are nothing in the perfect, unbreakable reality of the Diamond Authority- but still no video games?

"But. . .I was going to beat a super secret level in this weird RPG I found in Steven's pile of clothes and it was getting really good about this dead guy unlocking a magical book and time traveling and saving the future from the legions of darkness."

"That is interesting. But no. You are grounded from contact with electronics for the foreseeable future." The permafusion walked off silently.

At least she was a bit better than the other Gems. The butler one was just parroting about how her carelessness hurt Steven. Peridot scoffed at that, he held the Rose Quartz gem. It was almost impossible for him to be hurt by words. That gem knew words.

And the small malformed one was just eating Earth Cuisine and laughing about her hair. So annoying.

Task one. Help these Crystal Clods clean up this gem debris. Task two: Build a weapon like that Rollman had in his game- that was a very useful multi tool to cause large amounts of mayhem in destabilizing the human civilization by creating a savior from a robot.

She liked robots. It reminded her of her limb enhancers and that was never a bad thing.

Task two was going rather smoothly all things considered since the things she knew of these machines was. . . looking at the machines she looked again. She waited for the menu of options and interface menus would swirl in her field of vision making her a controller of many millennia of Homeworld knowhow. It would usually pop up with the needed parameters for complete annihilation of her enemies and continued options for different tactics and scenarios. But there was nothing.

Empty nothing. She felt completely worried for a moment and screeched at the sky. Exuding confidence and charisma was useful in Role Playing Games, so since this was what Steven liked to call Beach City Fun Reality it had to work twice as awesome.

Steven was a natural Bard, Healer combo and therefore had enough Charisma to make his harebrained schemes work.

Looking down at her gathered pieces, she frowned. There was no reason why she couldn't build a weapon. Bismuths were builders and Peridots helped build Bismuths so therefore by the transitive property of that, then she would be the ultimate builder and therefore the best Gem of the job to create a weapon of deadly use.

"Grah, this is so annoying. Stupid clods confiscating my things. Touching my things. Breaking my things."

She blanked out for a moment things of her standing over the Crystal Gems in a victory pose from her favorite games. Bending over them over and over to show dominance- and with how common of a gesture it was in games it must be a complete dominance thing. She grinned for a moment and realized she may have been too happy when she got pelted by a pebble.

No, not a clod. A literal pebble. One of those small stones all over this beach.

Glancing up she noticed that Steven was standing with three other Steven like humans and they looked a tad familiar to her but she couldn't place it. Sure the three of them looked protective of Steven and they looked a bit mad at her for some reason.

How quaint, Earth things hated her for no reason.

"Hello, other Stevens." Peridot tried to smile but it was a tad intimidating being stared down by taller things.

"Hey, want to go somewhere fun?" The tall blonde said in a constant tone of bored apathy tinged with some sort of important need for something to do. His monotone meh attitude reminded her of other things on Homeworld.

"Why are you asking me this because I've gotten used to doing something and then it going horribly wrong." Peridot tried to keep up the charade of toughness but it had been like four full days of not enjoyable experiences and it was rather exhausting mentally.

"Well, it's mostly Steven's idea but you know think of it as a Welcome to Earth party and maybe show you some fun stuff. And from what Steven has told us, you've been either a jerk to everybody or living in his bathroom for a week. And while that's weird and horrible- you do need to get out and live a little." The female Steven groaned as she tried to explain the arrangement. Peridot hadn't been terrible- it was how she was made and logically there was no defect in her personality code to highlight possible bad things. She was just following Homeworld's directives for existence- organic life was inferior and therefore not as important as Gemkind.

"Also you've brought Steven's natural powers of being a upbeat dude down and made him all bummed out for being his mom. He can't help it and he can do what he wants cause he's literally his own mom." The cool Steven hid his eyes behind visored glass and told a logical argument.

These Stevens weren't terrible. And Connie's book library told Peridot of friendship bonds and the magic of talking with other Stevens so it wasn't a bad idea to have confidants and truly living in the bathroom did get boring after you knew what happened in there.

"Fine. It's not like I have anything better to do.

Human naming conventions were strange- it didn't follow Homeworld's logical sense of naming workers on their gem's cut and facets made logical sense. Also the gem's coding helped have each gem look a bit different with where their gem was located on their formed body- so even with their being a class of Peridots, there was enough differentiation between to tell who was who.

But humans were weird- there was already so much difference with each of the human race subtypes in this failed gem colony to made each different to one another- but then from what these "Cool Kids" seemed to say that even within the human race itself there were races and ethnic groups and strangest of all- familial units that shared the names of one another.

So this Sour Cream, Buck Dewey, and Jenny Pizza were different than Steven and Connie and Stevens were not the dominant race of humanoid creatures that infested this planet with life and filth.

It wasn't a bad talk and was rather enlightening for how human society could be toppled by inequality and power differentials.

"So what is this Homeworld like cause I dunno man, but Steven being half alien space rock is pretty neat to me." Sour Cream glanced lazily out the car's window, his question rolling quietly against the hills that the vehicle was riding up and down.

"It's dying. I mean the Diamonds have the whole situation under wraps for most gems, but reading logs of other Peridots in my facet group from millennia ago shows that Homeworld's capacity to create gems is becoming more difficult and so we've had to cut corners making gems."

"Like what does that mean?"

"Well let's just say that Rose Quartz is hated by every raised gem on Homeworld because she ended the Era 1 gem development and helped Era 2 gems be weaker. We spent so much energy fighting a war we we trained to win and look at this dump here. Its irrelevant but it's also infuriating."

The car's radio turned off and silence reigned for a few seconds before anybody decided to speak.

"That's heavy." Jenny stared off into space as the idea of space rocks existing and living on a ding planet was not something anybody expected when a pretty normal question was being asked.

"Sounds pretty uncool to me." Buck quietly stared at the stars.

"I mean it's pretty okay. All gems have a place and thing we are good at and we don't ask questions about it. I guess it could be seen as a sad thing but it's just a thing I know. Though I wonder how Yellow Diamond will take the news my mission failed. Probably destroy the planet in anger for that." Peridot shivered at the physically imposing Diamond that ruled over her division and mission. She was Yellow Diamond's. It wasn't right to question her genius. Was it?

"Woah. It sounds like you got some authority issues, dude. I mean we all can relate. Buck's dad is the mayor making him the most cool dude here but his dad's a weirdo. Jenny's dad is pretty harsh on her mellow. And my stepdad likes going MUH MUH MUH when I say I want to be a DJ." Sour Cream stared at Peridot while delivering his little speech, shivering just a bit with feelings.

"I mean she's not part of my familial unit if you are meaning that. And she's better than any gem besides another Diamond in every way possible."

"Maybe that's what they want you to think. The man always wants you to think they are better than you. It gives them power to do or say whatever they want without any problems." Buck smiled at Peridot, gently putting a hand on her shoulder.

"I get what you are saying in theory but she's still my Diamond."

"Yeah, girl, I mean my dad's my dad but even parents can make uncool decisions that kind of suck. They may be your parents or authority figures or whatever- but even they can make mistakes." Jenny turned on the radio to a quiet level, the music providing a calming atmosphere to let everyone think of their own issues.

"Peridot, I mean I don't know how Yellow Diamond is but even the other Crystal Gems make mistakes. Maybe she's equally not as perfect. Gem things and human things might not completely fit together with how things work but nobody is perfect." Steven gripped Peridot's hand.

She didn't pull away. He was one of the only Crystal. . .Gems. . .she could stand right now. He wasn't a gem warrior like his mom?. . . but he was pretty okay.

"Okay, Steven. Sorry everybody for not being cool or whatever."

"No problem. Everybody's a little bit uncool. Now if everybody is ready, we can actually start our little fun night and enjoy it. But first we need some snacks." Jenny swerved into the local 7-24 shop and turned the car off.

"Now who wants some snacks?"

The place was quite impressively stocked with sustenance. Each brightly lit area was filled with energy boosters and sugar based products. Peridot was going to grab everything in there to taste the things since both Steven and Amethyst both enjoyed food based things and if a gem enjoyed food it had to be okay.

Then Jenny had to tell her what money was. Monetary wealth existed in Homeworld society but Peridots weren't often let to have credits because they were too useful for creating new gems and so Peridot didn't get to see most of Homeworld outside of her bunk and housing complex for other Peridots.

So sure she got the idea that this place was a credit based society but there was so much cool stuff.

So after a few minutes of debating between the five of them, they decided she could have the cheapest food in the store but a lot of them to make up for it. Peridot was happy and bowed to the Diamond of these Pixy Stix and grabbed ten of them for herself.

"Nyehehe these are mine and not yours!" Peridot ran out the door with her things.

"Peri, we still have to pay for those." Steven groaned and pulled out a few dollars. "Here you go."

The person at the counter glanced at Steven and smiled before realizing who it was. "Thanks, anime boy. I will treasure this moment always."

"Uh, okay. Well see you later, stranger."

Jane, who had seen what awesome things that boy could do with a magical pink sword when she was working at the movie theater, sighed. A tear fell down and she wished her life was an awesome magical girl anime. She quickly texted Ronaldo about the cool boy with a pink lion. Her life was boring but anime was not.

The place where they ended up after that fun snack run was an abandoned shack Peridot surmised.

She had eaten all of her Pixy Sticks and was currently trying to calm down after she thought sounds had become colors and the car was talking to her. It spoke so many cool things from the radio. Steven called it music. It was nice. Though the screeching dropping noises were hard to get used to it was calming after a while and she was beginning to like this "hip hop/ electronica/ chillstep music" that Sour Cream called it. As Jenny put it, it was pretty fire.

Steven helped move some of Sour Creams equipment and Peridot loved watching him pull out technology. Sure it wasn't gem technology, but it felt soothing to her as she saw small screens and larger sound amplifiers be built up into a thing that could, in theory, talk to aliens.

Via this music of course, but music was a part of gem culture with the bacteriophages creating gem hotbeds via song. Sure gems themselves were not allowed to sing outside of culture gems that provided entertainment to elites, but song existed.

Seeing that people were dancing to the music, that was unexpected. Dancing was supposed to be a wartime tool to create fusions possibly- and with the Rose Rebellion making fusion between two different gems a possibility- the Diamonds had to crack down.

There were no dances allowed and if you had to fuse- it was only with your own gem type. And Era 2 gems were made without the weapon or powers or the ability to fuse. Just to let gems know that there was an order and walking outside of that order was a way to get expunged.

Follow rules. Live life. Die for the cause of the Diamonds. Repeat.

She looked up to see Sour Cream wave at her and Peridot sighed. Well at least it was better to see what he wanted than sitting here being sad on Earth. She picked herself up and walked over to him.

"What do you want?"

Sour Cream pointed at another headset that he had. "You wanna try to DJ?"

Peridot wondered. She liked the music and the mass of technology that Sour Cream had rivaled some of the gem tech per square foot of some devices. And it wasn't a weapon that was used to destroy worlds, or was governed by rules that were put in place by the Diamonds. There was no baggage. It wouldn't hurt to try.

"Sure." Peridot grabbed a seat at the booth and Sour Cream showed her the basics of setting up a groove and basic melody with notes and intervals.

"Now even with instrumental music like chiptune or techno, there's still a melody based around what feels right to the person. Each person holds a tune that's connected to the universe and so DJing is like showing what's the deal with you and what you think sounds nice. People like honesty and dancing so combine those together and you got a stellar groove to get people dancing."

"Um, okay. That doesn't sound that hard."

"Okay, let's see what you got."

Breathe, Peridot. You got this. Think of what makes you, you. Experience me. Pulling memories together, she thought of the first time she got to Earth- putting that as a droning bass note that began the groove since the mission had been so important to her at first. Then she layered the other pieces thinking of times where she had to deal with Homeworld policies and Yellow Diamond, or Jasper, or- She thought of how Lapis was doing and layered that sound in her head as a melody that washed over the others like water on a beach.

She had gone completely silent. Meditating. She needed to figure out how she felt about herself and what she was even doing here. Music was rather nice and she felt something- emotional? Happy? She felt happy.

She let that end and opened her eyes.

Everybody was looking at her. She glanced around and realized why.

Somehow the entirety of the booth and everything she used was floating.

"Peridot! You have metal powers?"

"I'm not supposed to."

Sour Cream smiled. That was rather nice to see a budding DJ. He had recorded the whole thing with video on his phone and it was rather cool to see. He sent it to Steven's phone just so Peridot could remember the moment. Also her being an alien lady from space had to make it hard to deal with Steven's sisters? Mother figures? Ehh, whatever they were it was probably a good idea to record this. She wasn't a terrible person. Nobody was- it was just them dealing with what they were taught by parents. Hanging out with Steven was rad because he was still an optimistic kid even after dealing with alien things. It nicely balanced out cynicism.

Peridot looked at the retreating car that carried three new friends. It was so small from this distance and yet it carried people that made her realize there was something more than just her Peridot duties of Kindergarten management. She enjoyed music and it was soothing to say the least. She glanced down at the pictures that had been taken with Steven's phone.

She was crushed between Steven and the others, but she was happy.

"Peri, you want to go inside now?"

"Yeah, Steven."

She enjoyed her weekend all things considered. She was going to go in quietly to make it easier since they had been out rather late and she ran into all three of the Crystal Gems staring her down.

"Do you know what time it is? Neither of you had called to say you were out and you just disappeared."

She would have probably been put in time out or stuck back in the bathroom again if Steven hadn't distracted. . .Pearl from destroying her.

"Pearl guess who's got metal powers?"

"Who is it? Because it's not you. Because Rose didn't have metal abilities. Unless you being half gem had an effect and somehow Greg gave you metal powers? But that would be completely preposterous."

"No, it's Peridot! See? Look, Sour Cream got it all on video and he sent it to me to show you guys!"

Peridot blushed as everybody looked at her accomplishment. Guess she had metal powers now. But Peridot wondered as she looked at the scene in front of her. Era 2 Gems were supposed to have no powers or anything at all. But somehow she could control metal. Was she lied to about her usefulness? Was it just Earth? She tabled that train of thought as she got hugged by all of the Crystal Gems.

She didn't get mad about it though. It felt nice.

A/N: Going to be a while for new chapters of this since I am going back to college. This chapter took longer because of the fact that Joy Ride was so heavily focused on Peridot's crashed ship. This one was rather fun to write though. And yes Sour Cream is one of my fave characters on the show.


	4. What Is Love?

Peridot stretched out and tried to get in a comfy position to watch this show that Steven had accidentally shown her in a moment of weakness.

She would have made fun of him a little bit if the show wasn't so interesting to watch and also made her understand how easy humans were able to fall in love.

"Percy you better see how Paulette does nothing in the camp and is a tertiary character in your love for Pierre or so help me I won't have good information on how humans work in true love relationships."

She would have paid attention more if Steven and Connie hadn't run in that moment to see where she was. Sometimes it was better to forget they existed but Pearl always said how bad that was and that was more annoying overall than stopping the tape she was watching.

"Peri? Peri look at this!" Steven shoved random leaflets of strange information into her primary ocular area and as Peridot read it she got that this strange Jamie was infatuated with the permafusion.

"And? I mean I really want to watch Camp Pining Hearts."

Connie perked up at that. "Oh really? My parents like that show. What season are you on? MMMH." Steven quickly grabbed her to be quiet. He really didn't like doing that without Connie's permission but Peridot was having an existential crisis.

"There's seasons? I thought it was a perfectly crafted one off tv movie that would never resume because the love between Percy and Pierre was seen by fans of the show to be the correct one and therefore nobody wanted another episode because the point of view character of Paulette brought no humor or charm to the story and had no attributes that brought honor to her team during the Color War."

"Peridot, how didn't you know that it had more episodes? It ends episode one with a preview of the next episode?"

"Because that just seemed like a dream sequence. But I have a question. How. Many. Seasons. Are. There."

Connie shrugged. "Seven? I mean they just had a new rebranding of the show so it's still kind of going on I guess."

"Fine. I guess I'll help you. I mean it wasn't like I have anything better to do now that my shipping chart and everything I hoped to learn about human love is changing."

"Well aren't you focusing too hard on just the show? I mean look at Beach City, there has to be a lot of people that think love is pretty cool." Steven tried cheering up Peridot and it sort of worked since she wasn't curled up in a ball of despair.

"Can we bring Lapis? I mean she's just sitting there."

Lapis' gem sat silently on the table. Nothing had changed since Lapis was poofed but Steven noticed that Peridot had been quietly taking Lapis out of the house on walks to the beach recently. Connie and Steven looked at each other and shrugged. Couldn't be too bad. At least it would get Peridot out of the house.

"Nyehehe yeah that's pretty tubular." Peridot sped off to get her cheeseburger backpack leash so she could carry Lapis. It sounded cute to her and Camp Pining Hearts told her that cute things were a human concept of nice things.

"Tubular?"

Beach City had gotten back to normal. The boardwalk was the most busy area of the town again since everyone was back from fleeing the scene after Homeworld tried attacking the Crystal Gems.

"Give me the bits, Ronaldo."

Ronaldo sighed and pushed his glasses up on his face to stare down at Steven. "Actually the term 'fry bits' does not exist upon the menu so I can't even attempt to create that junk you call food. I am not a character from Food Wars trying to best other chefs. I'm just a lowly person that doesn't have a Namekian as a friend, Steven."

"What is he talking about?"

"That you keep bringing weirdly colored chicks here and real life is not an anime. Stop making my regular conspiracy filled life into an unrealistic magical girl anime. This is not Sailor Moon!"

"Ronaldo-" Peridot held up a finger at Steven and glared at Ronaldo.

"I got this Steven. You are wrong. I am not a Namekian. I am a Peridot from Homeworld and since I still have ways to contact my evil race of Pillar Men to bring your puny human race to heel from our advanced technology and difficulty to break under pressure. But we desire tribute from you in terms of fry bits because Steven here is my friend and to show a Pillar Man that there is stuff outside of sitting in silence and thinking about nothing while the world moves around you. There are things more relevant than a puny human I could take out in one punch. So please be nice to my friends or else. Because since I am a construct of light built around an inner shell, I could be classified as a Stand by anime logic if you wanted to reach for it. Don't make me angry kid. I deal with more scary things in my dreams."

Peridot tried to bring her glare and pretty much aim it at the annoying kid.

"Fine. Gosh. Here Steven, here's some bits now take your anime character life away from me."

"Uhm thanks, Let's go everybody."

Ronaldo sighed once they went over the hill and texted his girlfriend that there's an evil green alien that knows anime. She laughed at him and sent him a picture of the same girl eating Pixy Stix. He knew what he had to do.

"Green Lady, even if your menacing aura has beaten me now I will swear that I will figure out how to destroy you because nobody takes advantage of me or my girlfriend. I swear revenge upon you,"

"Ronaldo, get back to work."

"Dad, you just ruined my cool moment, gosh."

"Well I'm going to ruin your wages if you keep scaring off customers."

"Peridot, why did you scare Ronaldo like that? I mean that was a bit uncalled for." Steven glanced over his shoulder to make sure there was nobody following them for pretty much not paying for food.

"I just turned on how Homeworld sees humanity. And I mean I have been reading up on human media. So I just used something that spoke to me on a Diamond level and he got the hint. Thanks Connie for showing me the idea of pictorial storytelling."

"No problem? I mean don't overdo the evil overlord bit cause you are still living here and all."

"Oh no worries. I wouldn't completely destroy a planet that has such useful things like snacks or this internet that is spoken of. But after that fun distraction, I feel like a new gem so let's get onto the mission again right now. Lapis says so."

Steven and Connie looked at one another for a quick moment. "Yeah sounds good. I mean look at all the people outside right now. Like Lars and Sadie right over there."

"Steven come on it's not like those two are a couple, they just work together and all at that donut shop you took me to." Connie tried to pull Steven away from the two young adults view but he wasn't budging on this.

"Yes I guess I could see the possible parameters why two different people could become attached in this oddly human emotion such as love while facing the monotony of a purpose that is antithetical to their hopes and dreams. It's almost like the perfect situation for a Diamond like form of workplace importance in this lesser human setting."

"Steven, what is that green dorito chick rambling on about. Also here's my second question, why do I have to see you on my days off. Aren't you tired of only going to the Big Donut and annoying my groove?" Lars yelled over while quickly being shushed by Sadie.

"Come on Lars, don't ruin the nice time we are having and we're going to miss our movie if we don't hurry up. It was your slow start to the day that almost got into this problem. I mean it's only the best horror movie of the year. Gorefest the fifth chapter."

"Well, yeah I guess but I do like looking nice still. It's hard getting used to all this stuff all at once. But I mean it's cool that you are making it a bit easier than a few months ago."

"I mean you did accidentally almost set fire to my stuffed animal collection. I think it's only fair, Laramie."

Lars cringed at that. "Yeah, that is a bad memory. Okay see you later, Steven and Steven's friend, and weird midget. Sade, I told you I didn't like being called Laramie in front of people. Okay, yep, onto Gorefest V!" Lars and Sadie quickly ran off arguing among themselves towards the movie theater.

"That was strange." Connie mused.

"Not the weirdest conversation I've ever heard them argue about."

"Steven, love is weird. Cause I feel that using show logic they will get together, but will be really annoying to watch."

"Camp Pining Hearts did a thing like this?"

"Yeah. Percy and Pierre had a similar relationship, yet were perfect for one another since opposites attract and fuse into an abomination of loving emotion."

"Well I guess I could see that but seriously those two are only good friends." Connie looked at the two people that disappeared as quickly as they came.

"Give it time. It will bloom into a beautiful thing." Steven sighed at that thought.

"What's up Stewball?"

"Steven why are we here? If you wanted Lapis to wake up via a water infusion, I tried that. It's called the ocean." Peridot stared up at the tall human. "What are you looking at like that?"

"Steven, why did you bring one of the gems that literally tried attacking Beach City? Are you trying to get people mad at you or something?"

"Nope, well, I dunno. Ronaldo sure didn't seem to like Peridot but I don't exactly know why he wouldn't I mean she is short and has metal powers and that's pretty neat."

"Sorry, Mr. Universe. If you could just kind of explain how you felt while in love I think it would be ice since Peridot is still stuck in the unrealistic kind of love idea from Camp Pining Hearts."

"Um, okay Connie. Well if I shorten the whole thing with Rose into as quick and easy as possible? We made it work. It wasn't always perfect and by no means did she like bringing up her past but younger people tend to not like their mistakes they did in the past that shaped them into who they are. I mean I did some stuff while being a rockstar that are not great and Steven's mom started a war so things are relative. But we all try to change and become better people. That is what love is. A difficult thing that is both the best and worst thing that can happen to people depending on the day but you make it work because you are building something beyond yourself and maybe, just maybe, you find out things that you didn't know about each other as you grow older."

Peridot sat down and cradled Lapis. "Thanks, Worse Steven. That was nice."

"You okay Peri?"

"Fine, yeah guys, I'm just going to go for a walk."

"Why am I worse Steven, I didn't even do anything."

Peridot stared out at the crashing waves that she had grew to enjoy when being in this kind of mood. The idea of love. What really was it. Sure there had to be some kind of emotional thing within Gem culture but love was not a common thing and it was meant to be ridiculed and punished. But here on this garbage planet people got to choose what they wanted to do and who to like. And the whole idea of love seemed so silly in a Homeworld sense- fusion tended to result from love and so the Diamonds used it to force fusion on experiments. Natural love wasn't supposed to happen. Was she even more defective than she feared?

"Sorry Lapis. I guess I kind of suck about dealing with this. I'm sorry what I had to do for the mission's sake.

 _Lapis? Why aren't you saying anything. Jasper told me to use any method to get you to spill on the renegades. I did everything I could to make you crack and spill the necessary information. And yet here you are still capable to hold your form while I have done every painful thing known to Gems."_

 _"They told me not to. And nothing you little self important piece of stone can do can help you crack me."_

 _Peridot picked up the nearby drill and began working again directly on the Gem that was Lapis' true form._

 _"Sorry this hurts me more than you."_

 _Lapis drowned out Peridot's echoing reply with her screams of pain. Maybe if she just took off some of the imperfections in Lapis' gem she might talk. She might. That's what the Diamonds taught Peridots. Imperfections could be fixed through direct application of pressure. Yet here she was feeling wrong since Lapis had been one of the few people that had shown her kindness._

 _"Log Date 7 14 2. Errant Era 1 Lapis Lazuli will not return to factory standard. Will continue operation as commanded."_

Peridot laid on the beach and stared up at the sky. "I'm sorry. Okay can we start over. I like you okay. I don't know what that means still but I did horrible stuff and I want to change okay. I do." Peridot didn't expect anything to reply back to her but she heard one sentence that lifted her spirits.

"Okay, Peridot, I'll give you a chance. One chance. I had some time to myself and could hear you from in there and yeah I am not great either."

Peridot opened her eyes and looked at Lapis and she felt happy. Maybe Earth wasn't the worst place if a lowly Peridot could even try to get close to an important Lapis Lazuli.

"We don't have to go fast at this, I mean it takes time and all and I don't want to impose I mean you just came back and all."

"Okay that's good. Though Peridot. I am saying I'm a horrible person too. I did things I regret during the war and probably did worse things than you can imagine."

"Well okay, I will take that into account. That's a start. Let's be the best people we can be and make it work. That's all we can hope for here on this planet."

The two of them laughed at that.

Two horribly broken gems don't often get to restart their own lives. That isn't the Homeworld way at all. But Peridot's ways were changing to fit into Earth's ideas of things.

A/N: Why yes Diamonds are Unbreakable.. I don't know why but Jamie as a character is not my cup of tea. Hence why I didn't focus on him.


End file.
